I Would Die For That

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Our New Deck

Hey everyone,

We wanted to send everyone some pictures of our new deck and our new patio furniture. As most of you know our house was built in 1996, which means the deck was built in 1996 too. Needless to say that it was a big mess. I have always wanted a huge deck that we could enjoy in the summer. That is one of the best things to me is being able to sit outside on a sunny day. So here is what we have now................. (remember the old deck was 12x10 the new one is 16x35)

IUI #3 WITH MEDS :) Clomid this round

Well after 2 natural IUI's I wasnt having much faith with the natural way. So I called the doctor and asked if I could be put on fertlity meds for my next cycle and he said yes. The clomid is supposed to block the progesteron in your brain and tell your body to produce more eggs. So hopefully this will produce more eggs or just better quaility eggs. They warned me about the side effects of clomid and thankfully they havent shown up to much yet.

# 2 Offically a bust

Well today I started my cycle. For those of you counting with me I was 2 days late. Not really sure why since I am always on time. It could be the stress of losing a friend. Im not sure what it was but this time was much harder then last. Most of the day I was not in control of my emotions, I couldnt stop crying and didnt know why. Emotions ran very very high this past 2 weeks. All I have to say is that I have the best husband in the world, with all these emotions needless to say I have not been the nicest to him. I dont relize it when the emotions come out but afterwards I do. This journey has taken a hugh emotional toll on me and nick and I am so very blessed to have the most amazing man as my husband and always here with me! Thank you nick....I LOVE YOU!!

Love,
Alisha

BFN = Big Fat Negitive

Yeppers thats what I saw this morning on the home pregnancy test.....a BFN ( which is one line not 2.... I'm starting to think that these things really dont have 2 lines ). Of course today is only DPO 11. There is always a chance that the HCG hasnt built up enough but I really doubt it. So im chalking this one up to a no for round 2. Im not really sure whats up next. The doctor orignally said that he wanted to go 3 months and then talk if it didnt work but not trying to sound vain each attempt we do we have to pay for out of pocket so I dont think the natural way is working to great I would like to look into a better option. Who knows???? Not me :) All I know is that the 2ww (2 week wait = the time from when you have the IUI until your cycle starts again, meaning that those 2 weeks are the time that you could become pregnant and you have to wait to know for sure) is the most emotional straining thing that I have ever done in my life. It makes CF look like a walk in the park on a summer day. I honeslty dont know how my cousin Mandy had such amazing strength to do this. She is a true insperation to me.

Alisha

Child To Place

On friday I got a call from a local DCS worker, I was getting my haircut so I didnt hear the call. She left me a message saying that she wanted to talk to us about the placement of a 12 year old girl. Now Im sitting here thinking you have to be kidding me all this time and now? I called her back but had to leave a message since it was later friday afternoon. Today she called me back and talked to me. They were looking for a foster home for this girl. So needless to say it wasnt what we had been looking for. Nick and I are keeping all the options open at this point. We are not sure what God has planned for us. Right now we are on DPO ( day past ovulation ) ( even thou in my case it means days past IUI) so we are on DPO 10. I took a home pregnancy test on sunday night and it came back negitive meaning that all the HCG hormone that they gave me in the trigger shot is out of my system. So if we do get a positive in the next couple of days then it should be the real thing. My cycle is due to start over on friday May 1st, so we will just wait and see. Not much else that we really can do. I could go get a blood test from the hospital but at this point I feel it didnt really work so I dont really see the point in wasting my time to go do all that even thou part of me feels that it might tell me, but it might not. You shouldnt start testing until DPO 12 which would be wed for me. I dont think that they had the timing right again this time I mean there is only a 6-12 hour window to get it right then its up to nature too so it seems like it has to be perfect.

FYI #1 - How CF is Passed from Parent to Child

Another Cf girl who is going thru IUI and fertility treatments just like nick and I posted this and I thought it was great and so I wanted to pass it along to everyone - Thanks Kristin!!!!

At the suggestion of a few people who said they'd like to hear more about CF, I've decided to do a series of "FYI Posts.". I'm glad to have this opportunity to spread CF awareness! I will try not to get too technical with these posts, but, as I am an engineer, that might be a challenge ;)So, here is my first one.Cystic Fibrosis is a recessive, genetic disease. The key word here is "recessive." Recessive means that a child must inherit two copies of the CF gene in order to have CF. A child who carries only one copy of the CF gene will not have CF. And, because a child receives one gene from each parent, if one parent is not a carrier of the CF gene, it is impossible for the child to have CF. CF is just like just like blue eyes - remember that lesson in high school science? Well, if you don't, here's a recap: Every parent carries two copies of a gene for eye color. Blue is a recessive gene and brown is a dominant gene. If a child is born with one brown-eye gene and one blue-eye gene, the child will have brown eyes. A child must have two copies of a blue-eye gene in order to have blue eyes.As I mentioned before, a child gets one gene from each parent. For two parents who are carriers of the CF gene, (e.g. my parents), here are the possible outcomes for a child.So, as you can see, when two parents are carriers of the CF gene, there is a 1 in 4 (25%) chance their child will have CF.Now, let's look at the case in which one parent has CF and the other parent is not a carrier. This almost certain is the case for Greg and I. The reason I say "almost certain" is because genetic testing, (which Greg has undergone), does not account for all of the CF genes (I will explain this more in the next FYI). There is still a 0.4% chance that Greg is a carrier. However, for the moment, we will look at that 99.6% chance. Here is a chart for a CFer having a child with a non-carrier.As you can see, it is impossible for a CFer and a non-carrier to have a baby with CF.Now to look at the 0.4% chance that Greg is a carrier. If that were the case, our chart would look like this:If one parent has CF and the other is a carrier, they have a 50% chance of having a child with CF.What all this means is Greg and I have a 0.4% x 50% = 0.2% chance of having a child with CF. In comparison, the average Caucasian couple has a 0.04% chance of having a child with CF, (so I was wrong in my comment response the other day).So yes, Greg and I have a higher chance of having a child with CF compared to an average couple. However, 0.2% is a very small chance. To put it in even more perspective, 0.2% is the same chance a woman my age, (32.5), has of having a child with Downs Syndrome. It is a chance that we, and my doctors, feel very comfortable with.

Round 2

Well we are onto round 2 of the IUI's. No luck with the first one so we will see where this one ends up at. Last friday was when the IUI was done, so now about 9 more days until we will know anything. I feel alot less stressed about this time Im not sure why, I think that I have a feeling now that there is nothing I can do to control what happens. I either get pregnant or I dont, of course I am hoping for the latter. We are really hoping that this doesnt take a year worth of trying but who knows. We think that everything is ok with both of us so we have no reason right now to hope that it wouldnt happen soon. The doctor said 3 tries then we will look into something more so maybe they will look into a medicated IUI with fetility meds. They say they can control that some more and give you more targets ( follicles ) to go after. But all in all it comes down to the timming. I really dont know how this is done, there is only a 6 hour window and it seems near impossible to hit it. Whats the point of doing everything if you dont have your IUI timed right in that window. I tell you its alot that goes into this.

Hoping For Sticky Thoughts

Hey everyone,

Well since the last post much has changed. As most of you know the doctors gave me the go ahead to carry our child myself. So we went and talked to all the doctors and decided to do IUI. An IUI is different from IVF. In an IUI they take the sperm and with a cathder insert the sperm into the uterine cavity. We chose this due to the fact that with CF you produce excessive mucus and conceving naturally is very hard. Our fertility doctor says that he sees no fertility issues or problems that would cause us trouble other then the CF and thinks that we should have a good outcome with the IUI's. Now just as with natural conception there is only a 20% chance each cycle to become pregnant.

So on the 10th of march we met with the fertility doctor and he told us to start checking my ovualtion and when we see a postitve call in and we will do an IUI the next day. By tue I had not seen a positive so I called in and they had me come down on wed and have an ultrasound to make sure that I was producing a follical, in english an egg. The ultrasound turned out good we had a good egg and they gave me an HCG trigger shot to make ovulation occur. Thur morning nick and I went down and had the IUI done. So now we are in the 2 week wait. In two weeks either I will start my cycle over again and we are not prego and we will try again next month or the hopeful thought that i will miss my cycle and the outcome will be that we are prego.

Well thats where we are at right now. Today is 3 days post IUI. 3 down and 11 to go. Im telling you these 2 weeks are insnane to wonder and hope all at once.

Side note, when you are given an HCG shot you will test positive for pregnant with a home pregnancy test. Since the hormone they give you in the shot is the hormone that is produced when pregnancy occurs. They tell you that you should test positive for at least 10 days after the type of shot that I recieved. Just to test it I took a home pregnancy test on thursday afternoon after the IUI and it tested positive so that shows that the shot was showing up on the test. That will give me a good basis on what to go on and hope that we get a negitive soon so that we can begin to test for the real thing in about 8 days :)